L20 goes cupping

L20 is an inventive, soon-to-open restaurant in Chicago, and the chef has been documenting the opening process on a weblog. It’s fascinating stuff, with photos that are sure to make you hungry. In the newest post, the staff shows that they’re paying attention to the coffee, too:

Our coffee undertaking began over six months ago. Our desire was to achieve the highest level of quality and consistency that we could, in order to provide the best cup of coffee to our guests. We started first with the beans.

After several cuppings of coffees from various roasters across the country, representing beans from across the globe, we finally made a decision—Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea. Their coffees were consistently better than all of the rest. It was very clear that their commitment to coffee mirrored our commitment to our guests’ experience.The passion and service displayed by their team assured us that we had made the right decision.

We will focus on direct trade coffees and source micro-lots whenever they are available to us. We will change the selections as new crops become available on the market.

I’ve written before about “restaurant coffee” and how chefs that pay attention to every little detail settle for really poor coffee, so it’s great to see another high-end place taking coffee seriously. They also adapted the coffee cupping process for vanilla beans, which sounds like an interesting experiment.

Comments

I now make it a point always to ask what kind of espresso a restaurant serves. Even if I don’t always want to order it after dinner (though I usually do), I hope that it makes them realize that it matters to some people.

Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, bartender, cocktail consultant, and magician in Portland, Oregon. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in the print or online editions of The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, The Los Angeles Times, Reason, The Oregonian, and other publications. His book on beer cocktails, Cocktails on Tap, is forthcoming from Stewart, Tabori, and Chang in 2015. [Photo by David L. Reamer.]